Last year I bought a pack of Evening Primrose seeds, Oenothera Odorata “Apricot Delight” and this year, they have flowered. Evening Primrose is a strange kind of plant in some ways, it grows long wavy flexible stems that have flower buds all along their length. They don’t open all at once but – like a Hemerocallis (day-lily) – there’s one flower per day. The bloom opens in the evening, releasing a strong and sweetly fragrant perfume and turns orange and withers by the same time the next day.
It’s really difficult to take pictures of Evening Primrose, the flowers are at their best when they’ve just opened in the evening, but the yellow is so beacon-bright that it dazzles the camera. It’s just as well that there’s only one flower a day because if they opened all at once, you’d be able to see the garden at night from the International Space Station.
I’m really glad I have this plant, it was straightforward to germinate from seed and happily survived the winter. Flowering at a sedate pace means they’ve been going for well over a month now and they show no sign of stopping, there are plenty more flower buds waiting for their day to open.
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